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Skald leads us away from the switchyard office into a long, low warehouse built over a train track that clearly hasn’t seen use since before I was born. An arthritic multi-ton winch sits on a concrete base right beside the tracks, brown rust leaking through too many layers of sloppy yellow paint and its gears corroded beyond repair. Part of the train tracks run over an open pit, deep enough that people could stand comfortably underneath and look up at a train car’s belly. Do train engines need oil changes? Tiny brown-and-white sparrows joyfully flit between age-stained splintering rafters and dive through the yawning sliding doors, dancing in the slanting light filtering through the filthy windows high up against the ceiling.
The plutocracy claimed the territory to build all this. Dra
